EM After Wolf Greeting
Uefa bans Türkiye star Demiral – Erdogan attends quarter-finals in Berlin
Status: 21:27 | Reading time: 3 minutes
Torjubel with Wolfsgross: Merih Demiral
Source: AFP/RONNY HARTMANN
After his wolf salute in the round of 16, Merih Demiral receives his punishment. According to a report in Bild, UEFA has banned the Turkish defender for two European Championship matches. Turkish President Erdogan wants to travel to Berlin for the quarter-finals.
Turkish defender Merih Demiral has been banned by UEFA for two European Championship matches. This is reported by “Bild”.
Demiral celebrated his goal in the round of 16 match against Austria on Tuesday evening in Leipzig with the so-called wolf salute. The gesture is considered a symbol of the right-wing extremist Turkish Grey Wolves. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the organization, also known as the Ülkücü movement, as a right-wing extremist group. In Germany, there are 18,500 members, making the group the largest right-wing extremist organization in the country. The Grey Wolves are not banned, but they are monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) had previously called on the European Football Association to consider sanctions. Ankara defended Demiral. “The reaction of the German authorities towards Mr. Demiral is itself xenophobic,” said the Turkish Foreign Ministry.
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Demiral, however, is receiving support from the Turkish head of state. Amid the diplomatic tensions between Berlin and Ankara over the goal celebration affair, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced his visit to Berlin for the quarter-finals on Saturday. He will attend the Turkish national team’s match against the Netherlands at the Olympic Stadium, the Turkish presidential office announced on Thursday.
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Shortly before, the Foreign Office had summoned the Turkish ambassador because of the gesture of the Turkish player Merih Demiral. As hosts of the European Championships, “we hope that sport brings people together,” the Foreign Office wrote on the online service X. On Wednesday, the Turkish government summoned the German ambassador in Ankara after the German government had voiced criticism of the wolf salute gesture made by the Turkish national player Demiral when celebrating a goal.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) will not receive Erdogan during his visit to Germany. “A meeting between Turkish President Erdogan and Chancellor Scholz on Saturday is not planned,” a government spokeswoman said in Berlin on Thursday evening when asked.
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From the perspective of the chairman of the Kurdish community in Germany, Ali Ertan Toprak, Erdogan should not be given “a big stage” during his visit. “Autocrats should stay at home,” he told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND). “But you probably can’t prevent people from attending the game.” Toprak fears that the visit “will once again inspire Turkish nationalism in the stadiums and on the streets.”
The chairman of the Turkish community in Germany, Gökay Sofuoglu, on the other hand, sees no reason to criticize Erdogan’s visit to the European Championships. “If Erdogan wants to come to Berlin, then he should come,” Sofuoglu told the RND. “There is no reason to get excited.”
“Other presidents and kings also come to their teams’ games. When Viktor Orban came to Stuttgart to watch the Hungarian team play, nobody was upset either,” Sofuoglo added, referring to the Hungarian prime minister.
CDU interior politician Stefan Heck criticized the Turkish head of state’s visit as interference in Germany’s domestic political affairs. The visit to the European Championship match between Turkey and the Netherlands was a “clear provocation,” Heck told the TV channel Welt. “You have to assume that Mr. Erdogan is not coming to Berlin for sporting reasons.”
Representatives of the parties in Germany condemned Demiral’s gesture. “It is absolutely unacceptable to abuse the stage of the European Football Championship by showing right-wing extremist symbols and thus conveying racist ideas,” said Dirk-Ulrich Mende of the SPD. “The supposed apology by the player Merih Demiral, according to which he only wanted to express his ‘Turkish identity’, is equally unacceptable.”
CDU politician Christoph de Vries stressed: “Football and fascism are a blatant contradiction.” Nothing justifies the display of right-wing extremist symbols. Green MP Kassem Taher Saleh said that anyone who uses the wolf salute on the pitch has “not only lost respect for sport, but fundamentally for people.” UEFA must take immediate action.
